Originally published
elsewhere at AW:
Okay, time to talk about what packagers are and how they work.
You know those annoying people at conventions who come up to you and say, "I have a great idea for a book! You write it and we'll split the money!"
That's what packagers do.
Except that packagers really do have an idea, and there really is money, and the book really will be published.
Packagers approach publishers with (wait for it) packages of cover art, fully edited text, and a guaranteed delivery schedule. All the publisher needs to do it put their logo on it, print, and distribute it. These are often, but not always, series. So the publisher knows that they can have a new book every month for six months or a year, usually under the same author name, and not have to worry about authors being late and throwing the entire schedule out of whack.
After the packager sells a package to a publisher, then they go out and find writers (who can write fast to specification) and cover artists (who can paint fast). The publisher gives the packager the same advance that they'd give some other book of the same kind -- call it $5K/title -- and pays the same royalties -- call it 10% of cover. The packager gives half of each to the actual author, and keeps the rest. So the author gets a $2.5K advance and 5% royalties.
What the author also gets is a "bible" for the series, which can be surprisingly slight. The author often gets to come up with their own outline for their book, though it will have to be approved by the packager. Deadlines can be quite tight. Six months is common, though I've seen twenty days (that was an odd case, where the editor at the packager who was supposed to assign the titles to authors went on maternity leave, and it fell through the cracks). Six authors working on six books for six months gives you six books for next year.
Suppose that concept that they sell is a series called
Chess Camp by "Brixton Mays." The pitch: "Teens learn about life, love, and the Nimzo-Indian Defense at Chess Camp!"
HarperCollins thinks this is a swell idea, and buys a six-book series, to be published two years from now (which is the schedule they're working on this morning). The packager rounds up six authors--often writers who they've worked with before and know can reliably turn in a professional-level manuscript on time and on length, or sometimes newcomers who have published a few stories in magazines or anthologies (and thus are known to be able to write on a professional level), and look like they might be hungry. This is work-for-hire; the copyright is in the packager's name.
Each author gets assigned one particular chess gambit, and some one-page character sheets detailing the kids who are at Chess Camp. Say Roxie Romaine (writing as Brixton Mays) gets the first volume:
The Four Knights Game. The characters she has to work with are Chrissy, a sassy black teen from inner-city Detroit, her goal is to go to New York and become a model; Franz, the stoic German, blond, who keeps his feelings under wraps; Genevieve, the redheaded hippy-dippy back-to-nature free spirit who finds the discipline of Chess Camp doesn't fit with her life-style; and brown-haired Claude, the studious, brilliant, but achingly lonely child whose father insisted that he come to Chess Camp even though his heart is really in woodwinds. Chess Camp, set high in the Berkshires, has a staff of world-champion chess players, led by Madame Zughoff, whose crusty exterior hides a heart of custard.
We need 80,000 words. Go, young writer!
This doesn't save the publisher any money -- they're paying the same advance they'd pay to a first-time author, and paying the same royalties. But it does save them the hassle of finding the books to keep their pipelines full while waiting for works of heartstopping beauty to come in from agents or over the transom. They only need to send one royalty report, and they only need to deal with one person. What they're buying is ease, reliability, and scheduling.
Suppose, then, that some other writer comes up with a brilliant idea about four teens who learn to play chess together
. That book isn't going to get bought, because it's too similar to something they've already got in the pipeline.
The odds that the editor who bought the packaged series and the editor who saw the author's submission are the same person are small. The odds that the packager saw the author's submitted story before pitching the series are smaller still. That the actual author had seen the other author's work the odds are essentially nil. The authors working for the packager are lucky if they see the manuscripts of the other authors working on the same series they are.
In the current case, the one who came up with the concept for the series was undoubtedly the packager. How long they'd been shopping the series around I'm sure they could prove from correspondence.